Moonlight Ecstasy
by epalladino
Summary: Carolyn Muir and Daniel Gregg do not see eye to eye on New Year's. What will he do? Please read and review


**Author's notes:** This will not be my first fanfic, but will be the first in this category. Also, I usually don't venture in anything quite this sexual. The date of this takes place after all residents of Gull Cottage have met Captain Gregg. I hope it works.

**Disclaimer**: Of course, none of these characters belong to me. I'm just having a little fun.

**Moonlight Ecstasy**

All told, Carolyn Muir thought to herself, it had been a wonderful New Year's Eve.

Martha had spent part of the evening with the family before departing for a special church service that would end with a love feast as the New Year arrived. Being allowed to stay up until midnight and to sip just a little champagne before being sent off to bed had excited Candy and Jonathan.

Even Captain Gregg, the resident ghost of Gull Cottage, had made an appearance, wishing them another year of health and happiness; now gladly sharing his house with his newfound family.

After the children had gone upstairs to bed, Carolyn and the Captain had toasted each other with a glass of his favorite Madeira. Despite the deep joy Carolyn felt in this moment, an unexpected dissatisfaction began to well up inside of her; an emotion she struggled to hide from her companion.

Nursing her glass of wine as she sat curled up in a chair, Carolyn gazed pensively into the dimly burning fire in the fireplace. She was dressed in navy blue slacks, a red and green holiday sweater, and light moccasins. The handsome specter of Captain Daniel Gregg, whose portrait dominated the living room from its spot over the mantel, stood next to her in his dress uniform; more intrigued by blond hair and downcast green eyes than his own glass of wine.

He, who could so often discern Carolyn's every mood and whim, sensed something was not quite right and made an assumption as to the cause. "I would suppose, Madam, that it is at such a moment as this that you most miss your late husband."

This unexpected comment surprised Carolyn, who was actually more enthralled by the huge portrait of Daniel Gregg than the fire she appeared to be contemplating as it ever so slowly died into embers. With an oddly sad laugh, she turned toward the original of that fascinating portrait.

"If you knew anything about my dear-departed husband, Captain, you would also know he would be the last thing I would be missing right now."

The bitterness of her tone startled him. "Indeed, Madam, I had always assumed that your marriage had been a happy one cut short by your husband's unexpected demise."

Sighing, Carolyn took another sip of wine as she turned back toward the fire. "Cut short, yes; unexpected, yes; happy, far from it. I once loved my husband, but I'm afraid, for reasons I would rather not go into, that my marriage and my love for my husband were dead long before he was."

Setting his glass down on a table near the chair, Daniel Gregg knelt by Carolyn; wishing with all of his might that he could take her into his arms and brush away the tears that were now starting to fall, even merely take her hand. "Avast those tears, Madam. I apologize with all my heart for dredging up such unhappy memories. You appeared preoccupied and I had taken for granted you were distressed by reminiscences of that event which induced you to leave Philadelphia and move here."

Carolyn placed her glass down next to his. Turning in her chair, she looked deeply into the blue eyes and bearded visage of the man she came to care for more and more since she arrived in Schooner Bay and moved into Gull Cottage. "Yes, I'm afraid I was a little preoccupied, Captain. But far from thinking of my late-not-so-lamented husband, I was thinking that despite certain, um… limitations, what I feel for you is greater than anything I ever felt for him."

Turning away from the ghost of Captain Gregg again, Carolyn sighed, "I just wish we could…"

The smile that briefly played across Daniel Gregg's fine-looking features faded as quickly as it came, going unnoticed by the woman he had ached to touch from the first moment he encountered her.

Arising from where he was kneeling, he unthinkingly placed an incorporeal hand on her shoulder, "Belay that thought, Madam; we both know such wishes are futile. My dearest Carolyn, I would be remiss in my duty toward you if I did not discourage all such vain desires."

At this, his first use of her given name, Carolyn arose and turned to face him; just then noticing the hand on her shoulder that she could no more feel than she could an insubstantial beam of moonlight. Having planned on debating the matter further, she instead wearily closed her eyes in resignation to an inescapable reality. She, of all things, had managed to fall in love with the ghost of a man who died over a century before she even became aware of his existence; truly a vain desire.

Seeing such an anguished look cross the face of his beloved was more than Daniel Gregg could bear. "I have, indeed, been remiss; too many times have I scared away those men who came to call on you. It was wrong of me to do so; instead, I now will chase myself away forthwith."

Carolyn opened her mouth to speak, attempting to dissuade him from such a drastic course of action. "No, Madam," he gently, but resolutely interrupted her, "a new year has definitely arrived; a year in which you should endeavor to find a good man worthy of your lovely self; a man who will also cherish your children as his own. You deserve nothing less and as my presence could occasion to hinder this, I bid you a fond farewell."

Immediately after uttering this decision, he flashed out of existence before Carolyn could utter a word of protest at this unexpectedly proposed separation. At first finding herself frozen in place, she then searched through all the places in the house where he usually haunted.

To no avail—no matter how many times she called, "Captain, please…" in a sort of strangled whisper, fearful of disturbing her children's rest, he never re-appeared. She searched one last time in the attic 'wheelhouse' where he often worked on his sea charts. While there, despondency finally gave way to anger and Carolyn Muir ran back downstairs to the living room where this conflict had started.

By this time, the fire in the fireplace had died out completely. Somehow, this only served to make her feel even worse. Clenching her fists, she again stared up at the portrait of Daniel Gregg.

"Captain, if you're hiding in that stupid picture," she growled, "un-dematerialize, or whatever blasted thing you call it, right this instant."

The silence in the house was absolute. Usually, even when Daniel Gregg was invisible, Carolyn could sense his presence—now there was nothing but a vast feeling of emptiness. Utter despair filled her and she ran out of the house, eventually coming to the private beach that fronted the property.

Even though the day had been sunny and clear, it had been very cold and the beach was covered in a blanket of snow that had fallen several days previous. All Carolyn was dressed in was the sweater, slacks, and thin shoes she had been wearing for most of the day.

But she felt nothing at all, neither the bitter arctic cold nor the icy snow she was now shin-deep in. The only thing she noticed was the full moon in the sky and the shimmering, silvery light that caused the dark sea to sparkle and made the snow-covered beach glow.

If this had been that magical time of midnight when she had toasted the coming of a bright new year, she would have considered this scene breathtakingly beautiful. Now everything, though brilliant, looked bleakly desolate; the cold moon stared down on her hot grief from its inaccessible distance.

Daniel Gregg, not quite succeeding in his resolve to vanish completely, stood overlooking the beach from the widow's-walk at the top of Gull Cottage. He watched in distress as a sobbing Carolyn dropped to her knees in the freezing snow.

With the extraordinary senses that belonged to him as a member of that fraternity known as ghosts, he heard her grief-stricken cry as clearly as if he had been standing beside her.

"Gull Cottage will never be the same without you, Daniel. I will never be the same. I love you so; please don't leave me." As Carolyn's lips uttered a name they had never spoken before, if a heart that was forever stilled could skip a beat, Daniel Gregg's did so. Adamant resolutions were thrown to the wind as he dematerialized from the balcony to rematerialize on the beach next to the sobbing woman.

"My dear Carolyn, I am far from being worthy of this extremity of grief." As he spoke, Carolyn got up from her knees, but the one she had cried out for had again become invisible.

"Please, Daniel," she whispered, tears still falling, "Let me see you."

"Would it not be wiser for you to see, Madam, that you would be better off finding a living man to share your life with? Rather than wasting it on me, a man who in his own lifetime was far from chaste and would have been totally undeserving of such an avowal as you have just expressed?"

Carolyn angrily stamped an almost completely numb foot. "Undeserving, poppycock! You simply don't love me as much as I love you! Why don't you just admit it?" His answer came, but seemed more to be inside her head than discerned by physical ears.

"My dear, I have always loved you; maybe even before you came to stay here, maybe even before you were born. Maybe it was you I was really searching for as I sailed the globe, taking to myself any and all women who were willing. Now, dearest Carolyn, it is too late. I could never allow you…"

"Kiss me, Daniel." This unexpected appeal stunned him.

He fully rematerialized beside her. "Madam, I may have certain special abilities granted to me in my current incorporeal state, but I cannot grant you that which is physically impossible."

Carolyn snorted, "I don't care what's impossible, Daniel. Just do it. Make it work."

He shook his head, tears in his blue eyes. "Even if I could do this, I would not. Despite my past adventures, Madam, it would still be improper to take advantage of a woman of your caliber."

Carolyn turned to face him, a veritable fire in her green eyes that he had never seen there before. "Daniel, why must you always be so blasted honorable and Victorian? This isn't the nineteenth century any more, you know. Kiss me now!"

Against his better judgment, the ghost of Captain Daniel Gregg bent his head down to her eagerly awaiting lips. A kiss that could not be felt, but was sensed in some way in the very depths of her soul, joined his mouth to hers.

As that kiss became more and more passionate and compelling, it deepened in some way that was completely beyond physical sensation. The moonlight, now tenderly luminous, shone through Daniel's almost transparent features and filled Carolyn's entire being with a cold and yet burning fire.

No longer merely kissing her, Daniel had entered into Carolyn in a way that she had never experienced before, not even in the first throes of passion with her late husband before he killed her love for him through his unfaithfulness. Almost overwhelming sensations flooded her fully aroused body as she became one with the universe, one with the moonlight—one with the man she loved.

Carolyn collapsed to her knees on the snow-covered beach, shuddering and sobbing, as wave after wave of the most intense orgasm she had ever experienced roared through her.

Daniel Gregg pulled away from this remarkable melding of their bodies in consternation. "My dearest Carolyn, unmarried as we are, I allowed myself to go too far. I beg you to forgive me."

Struggling up from the beach on legs that had become weak from the force of their passion, Carolyn smiled brightly up at him.

"Forgive you for what, Daniel? _'And they two shall become one flesh.'_ I've never felt anything remotely like that with my late husband, but I certainly did with you. If that's not being married to you I don't know what is."

Carolyn turned and started to walk back to the cottage, "Let's go home, dearest. For some reason I'm starting to feel a little cold and could use a nice hot bath."

Daniel Gregg followed Carolyn back to the house that he had long ago built with his own two hands. He now saw what he did not see before. This was truly a new year and a new life for both of them.


End file.
